Tuesday: A day to welcome the Stranger!
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group gives Kossacks a safe place to check in, a daily diary where we
can let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, earthquakes, or other such things that could keep us off DKos. It also allows us to find other Kossacks nearby for in-person checks when other methods of communication fail - a buddy system. If you're not here, or anywhere else on DKos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, earthquakes etc.), we and your buddy are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care!
IAN is a great group to join, and a good place to learn to write diaries. Drop one of us a Kosmail and ask to be added to the Itzl Alert Network anytime! We all share the publishing duties, and we welcome everyone who reads IAN to write diaries for the group! Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say, photos and music to share, a cause to promote or news!
We do have a diary schedule. But, when you are ready to write that diary, either post in thread or send FloridaSNMOM a Kosmail with the date. If you need someone to fill in, ditto. FloridaSNMOM is here on and off through the day usually from around 9:30 or 10 am eastern to around 11 pm eastern.
Monday: Crimson Quillfeather
Tuesday: ejoanna
Wednesday: Pam from Calif
Thursday: art ah zen
Friday: FloridaSNMOM
Saturday: FloridaSNDad
Sunday: loggersbrat
Under the Long-Time-No-See Category for this past week, I nominate the snowy owl who was recently spotted in Central Park, NYC. Why was this siting such a sensation, sending birdwatchers scurrying through the cold weather to catch a glimpse?
In the winter of 1890, a snowy owl was spotted in New York City’s Central Park, part of what a contemporary account called an “unusual abundance” along the East Coast of the large, strikingly beautiful predators that make their home in the Arctic tundra.
“Unusual” is right. A snowy owl, according to birding records, did not show its fluffy self in Central Park for another 130 years.
Then came Wednesday morning.
A birder who runs the Twitter account Manhattan Bird Alert read about an owl sighting on a tracking site and sounded the alarm.
“A SNOWY OWL, a mega-rarity for Central Park,” he wrote, “is now in the middle of the North Meadow ball fields.”
(New York Times, Jan. 28, 2021.)
Wow. Another celebrity bird for NYC. But it didn’t stay long. First, other raptors tried to shoo it along, crows (see photo above) and a red-tailed hawk:
But probably what finally got this rare visitor to depart for more comfortable digs was:
Yep, people. With cameras.
Oh well, maybe in another 130 years.
Of course, the Snowy Owl was not the first “celebrity bird” to grace Central Park.
There was the Mandarin Duck (aka The Hot Duck) in Oct. 2018.
Then the Barred Owl in October 2020.
They have since gone on to other venues.
Oh, any rare sitings or visitors in your neck of the woods lately??